RUSH LIMBAUGH has an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, "The Race Card, Football and Me": "Numerous sportswriters ... falsely attributed to me statements I had never made. Their sources, as best I can tell, were Wikipedia and each other. But the Wikipedia post was based on a fabrication printed in a book that also lacked any citation to an actual source. ... [T]his spectacle is bigger than I am on several levels. There is contempt in the news business, including the sportswriter community, for conservatives ... 'Racism' is too often their sledgehammer. And it is being used to try to keep citizens who don't share the left's agenda from participating in the full array of opportunities this nation otherwise affords each of us. ... [I]t was employed against patriotic citizens who attended town-hall meetings and tea-party protests. These intimidation tactics are working and spreading, and they are a cancer on our society."

Good Saturday morning. The cover of the NEWSWEEK closing tonight is Sen. Lamar Alexander (Mr. Meacham’s fellow Tennessean) making the case for a three-year bachelor’s degree.

EXCLUSIVE -- JANE MAYER in the new NEW YORKER, “The Political Scene -- THE PREDATOR WAR: What are the risks of the C.I.A.’s covert drone program -- The ‘push-button’ approach to fighting Al Qaeda represents a radically new use of state-sanctioned lethal force”: “The U.S. government runs two drone programs. The military’s version, which is publicly acknowledged, operates in the recognized war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, and targets enemies of U.S. troops stationed there. As such, it is an extension of conventional warfare. The C.I.A.’s program is aimed at terror suspects around the world, including in countries where U.S. troops are not based. It was initiated by the Bush Administration and, according to Juan Zarate, a counterterrorism adviser in the Bush White House, Obama has left in place virtually all the key personnel. The program is classified as covert, and the intelligence agency declines to provide any information to the public about where it operates, how it selects targets, who is in charge, or how many people have been killed. Nevertheless, reports of fatal air strikes in Pakistan emerge every few days. … [T]he C.I.A. has joined the Pakistani intelligence service in an aggressive campaign to eradicate local and foreign militants, who have taken refuge in some of the most inaccessible parts of the country. …

“According to a just completed study by the New America Foundation, the number of drone strikes has risen dramatically since Obama became President. During his first nine and a half months in office, he has authorized as many C.I.A. aerial attacks in Pakistan as George W. Bush did in his final three years in office. The study’s authors, Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann, report that the Obama Administration has sanctioned at least forty-one C.I.A. missile strikes in Pakistan since taking office—a rate of approximately one bombing a week. So far this year, various estimates suggest, the C.I.A. attacks have killed between three hundred and twenty-six and five hundred and thirty-eight people. Critics say that many of the victims have been innocent bystanders, including children. … With public disenchantment mounting over the U.S. troop deployment in Afghanistan, and the Obama Administration divided over whether to escalate the American military presence there, many in Washington support an even greater reliance on Predator strikes. … It’s easy to understand the appeal of a “push-button” approach to fighting Al Qaeda, but the embrace of the Predator program has occurred with remarkably little public discussion, given that it represents a radically new and geographically unbounded use of state-sanctioned lethal force. And, because of the C.I.A. program's secrecy, there is no visible system of accountability in place, despite the fact that the agency has killed many civilians inside a politically fragile, nuclear-armed country with which the U.S. is not at war. …The Obama Administration has also widened the scope of authorized drone attacks in Afghanistan.”

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TOP TALKER -- WSJ A1, "GOP Sees Gains in Race for Donations," by Brody Mullins and T.W. Farnam: "The Republican Party is gaining fund-raising momentum for the first time since losing the presidency last year, evidence that a summer of conservative activism could augur a political shift. The Republican National Committee said it raised $8.8 million in September, a monthly record for the GOP in a nonelection year, while fund-raising reports released Friday show Republicans in the House and Senate making inroads into the big financial advantage Democrats established in recent years. The shift will help the GOP's chances in the 2010 midterm elections, as the increase in donations helps to feed subsequent fund-raising efforts. ... A Wall Street Journal analysis of the fund-raising data shows the GOP benefited from a rise in donors who contribute less than $200. House Republicans received a total of $5 million in contributions from such sources -- nearly twice as much as Democrats, who were more reliant on political-action committees."

SHOT -- PETER ORSZAG, White House budget director, in a statement yesterday revealing a record $1.42 trillion deficit for year ending Sept. 30, more than triple the figure for the previous year: “As part of the FY 2011 budget policy process, we are considering proposals to put our country back on firm fiscal footing.”

CHASER -- AP: "The Obama administration projects deficits will total $9.1 trillion over the next decade unless corrective action is taken."

WEST WING MUST-READ -- Bloomberg, “Obama, Advisers Push Back on Bank Lobbying Against Regulation,” by Julianna Goldman: “White House officials say they are frustrated that major financial firms are fighting President Barack Obama on the regulatory overhaul after taxpayer bailouts helped firms restore profits and near-record compensation for executives. Their anger is directed even at companies such as New York's JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. that have paid back their government assistance and reported a surge in third-quarter earnings this week. ‘We are disappointed by the lobbying of anyone in the financial industry against regulatory reform, considering the obvious need for change on that front,’ Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to Obama, said yesterday. …

“In interviews, speeches and statements, they are highlighting what they say is a disconnect between Wall Street and the rest of the country: while some big banks report compensation plans and profits at pre-crisis levels, the unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent last month and home foreclosures jumped 29.2 percent from a year earlier. … Lawrence Summers, director of Obama's National Economic Council, reinforced the theme yesterday in New York. ‘There is no financial institution that exists today that is not the direct or indirect beneficiary of massive taxpayer support for the financial system,’ Summers said in remarks to a conference sponsored by the Economist magazine. Wall Street regulation is scheduled to be among the topics when Jarrett, Obama adviser David Axelrod and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel appear tomorrow on Sunday news talk shows.”

EXCLUSIVE: JIM WOOLSEY, the former CIA director, next week will be named a member of the board of advisers of SOLAZYME, making algae cool by being named to BusinessWeek’s “25 companies to watch in cleantech.” Last month, the Navy awarded the South San Francisco company two contracts to make biodiesel fuel.

NEW JERSEY GUBERNATORIAL DEBATE -- POLITICO’s Jonathan Martin, in Wayne: “Corzine, who has been the beneficiary of Daggett’s surge, largely ignored the independent at the debate, held on the campus of William Paterson University, and focused his fire entirely on Christie. … Corzine, who is deeply unpopular, acknowledged mistakes in his difficult first term, but depicted a state whose economic fortunes were improving, repeatedly mentioning by name the companies that are relocating to New Jersey.”

VIDEO -- RACHEL MADDOW led last night with “POPPY DON’T PREACH,” after President George H.W. Bush told Peter Maer in a CBS radio interview, referring to the breakdown in civil discourse: “I don’t like it. I think the cables have a lot to do with it. I’ll take you back when I was president, we got tons of criticism, but it didn’t seem day in and day out quite as personal as some of these talk-show people. And it’s not just the right. There’s plenty of people on the left. If you want me to name a couple names, I’ll be glad to do that for you.”

MAER: “Go ahead.”

BUSH 41: “Keith Olbermann and Rachel Mad-DOW. I mean, here are a couple of sick puppies.”

OLBERMANN TOLD HER IN A TELEPHONE INTERVIEW: “Well, I think I can speak on your behalf here and say that we’re very grateful for the former president's concern about our health.”

JON MEACHAM, in next week’s NEWSWEEK: “Like Bush 41, Obama seems temperamentally incapable of extremism. Now, since the foregoing sentence will make conservatives' heads explode, here is a final point likely to drive liberals to distraction: from Guantánamo to the bailout of the financial system to anti-terror tactics, Barack Obama is a lot more like George W. Bush (or at least the George W. Bush of his later years in office) than almost anybody involved--including, I suspect, Obama or Bush 43--would readily admit. At their best, both of them have worked to govern as presidents, not as partisans, which is the way good men have always conducted themselves in that office. Obama … will always be shouted at and about. But remembering that he, like his predecessors, is working within commonly accepted political boundaries may help put the shouting in context.”

PUNDIT PREP -- AP, "Health Care-House vs. Senate: House, Senate Dems at odds on health care overhaul," by Erica Werner: "You may think Democrats and Republicans are at odds over health care. Well, they've got nothing on House and Senate Democrats going after each other. The intraparty disputes may prove the most grueling test of all as Congress tries to write a bill that fulfills President Barack Obama's goal of extending coverage to millions of Americans and reining in rising medical costs. The disagreements extend well beyond whether or not to allow the government to sell insurance in competition with the private market, though fissures over the so-called public plan - preferred in the House, less so in the Senate - have drawn the most attention. Some of the toughest fights loom over what requirements employers should have to shoulder to see that their workers are covered, and perhaps stickiest of all, how to make coverage affordable and pay for extending it to millions of uninsured."

THE NARRATIVE:

--WashPost lead story, “ Record-High Deficit May Dash Big Plans: $1.4 Trillion in Red Ink Means Less to Spend On Obama's Ambitious Jobs, Stimulus Policies,” by Lori Montgomery and Neil Irwin: “The federal budget deficit soared to a record $1.4 trillion in the fiscal year that ended in September, a chasm of red ink unequaled in the postwar era that threatens to complicate the most ambitious goals of the Obama administration, including plans for fresh spending to create jobs and spur economic recovery. Still, the figure represents a significant improvement over the darkest deficit projections, which had been as much as $400 billion higher earlier this year, when the economy was wallowing in recession. … At about 10 percent of the overall economy, the gap between federal spending and tax collections is the largest on record since the end of World War II, and bigger in nominal terms than the past four years of deficits combined. Next year is unlikely to be much better, budget analysts say. And Obama's current policies would drive the budget gap into the trillion-dollar range for much of the next decade.”

--N.Y. Times lead story: “U.S DEFICIT RISES TO $1. 4 TRILLION; BIGGEST SINCE ’45,” by Jackie Calmes: “Investors who are essential to financing the debt, including China and other foreign interests, are eager for signs that the government will eventually regain control over its budgets. And polls show that Americans are increasingly worried as well, raising concerns about Mr. Obama’s ambitious domestic agenda, including his signature health care overhaul, that Republicans are stoking. At the same time, many Americans are demanding further help, confronting forecasts that job losses will not peak until mid-2010.”

--WSJ, “ Deficit of $1.4 Trillion Limits Democrats,” by John D. McKinnon: “Deficits also are looming large as a political issue in the 2010 campaign, as voters fret about the long-term consequences of mounting debt. ‘I don't think I've seen this level of concern since 1992, when Ross Perot said we need to look under the hood and fix the engine,’ House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland said in an interview Friday. ‘Government, individuals and businesses are all looking at their debt loads and recalculating.’ … Some freshman Democrats are pushing their party to go further and use the [health-reform] bill to substantially reduce future government spending. Rep. Steve Driehaus, an Ohio freshman, said he brought up deficit concerns as recently as Thursday in an informal meeting at the White House with Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.”

ALSO DRIVING THE CONVERSATION:

-- THE WHITE HOUSE: “President Barack Obama named George D. Mulligan, Jr. as Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Military Office … George D. Mulligan, Jr. has served since 2005 as the Deputy Director.”

BEN SMITH: “A MULLIGAN!”

--“HOPE” ARTIST ADMITS FRAUDULENT COURT FILING -- AP National Writer Hillel Italie: “The artist who designed the famous Barack Obama ‘HOPE’ poster has admitted he didn't use the Associated Press photo he originally said his work was based on but instead used a picture the news organization has claimed was his source. Shepard Fairey, a Los Angeles-based street artist with a long, often proud history of breaking rules, said in a statement Friday that he was wrong about which photo he used and that he tried to hide his error. … ‘Instead of acknowledging that mistake, Mr. Fairey attempted to delete the electronic files he had used in creating the illustration at issue. He also created, and delivered to his counsel for production, new documents to make it appear as though he had used the Clooney photograph as his reference,’ [according to court papers by his lawyers, who have withdrawn.] …

“Fairey, 39, had claimed he based his ‘HOPE’ drawing on a photo of then-Sen. Obama seated next to actor George Clooney. The photo was taken in April 2006 by Mannie Garcia, on assignment for the AP, at the National Press Club in Washington. Fairey now says he started with a solo photograph of Obama — taken at the same event, by the same photographer — a picture seemingly closer to the iconic red, white and blue image of Obama, underlined with the caption HOPE. … The ‘Hope’ image has appeared on countless posters, stickers and buttons. It has appeared in several books and in numerous museums, including a mixed-media stenciled collage version added to the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington. Fairey also used the AP photograph for an image designed specially for the Obama inaugural committee, which charged anywhere from $100 for a poster to $500 for a poster signed by the artist. Fairey has said that he first designed the image in early 2008, after he was encouraged by the Obama campaign to come up with some kind of artwork.”

--AP “CORRECTIVE … In stories Oct. 14 and Oct. 15 about New York City terror suspect Najibullah Zazi, The Associated Press erroneously reported that U.S. intelligence officials knew of indirect contact between Zazi and a man believed to be the head of al-Qaida in Afghanistan -- Mustafa Abu al-Yazid. The initial report, from New York, on Oct. 14 was based on AP's misinterpretation of a series of telephone and e-mail exchanges between an AP reporter and two U.S. intelligence officials. The officials told the AP on Thursday that they had not been aware of any contact between al-Yazid and Zazi. … Zazi has pleaded not guilty to charges he conspired to use weapons of mass destruction. Prosecutors say he is behind a plot to use homemade bombs in New York City.”

TERRORWATCH -- L.A. Times A1, “ WEAKER AL QAEDA REMAINS A THREAT: An increasing ability to recruit from Central Asia and Turkey has helped the group offset losses of Arab fighters”: “Al Qaeda last spilled blood in the West in July 2005 when bombing attacks on the London transportation system killed 52 people. Global cooperation and aggressive infiltration by Western spy services have thwarted subsequent plots, and a stepped-up campaign of drone strikes has killed many Al Qaeda leaders and intensified divisions among extremist groups.”

PRESSWATCH:

--The New York Times yesterday launched its handsome “The Bay Area” report, a two-page addition to the A sections San Francisco copies on Fridays and Sundays. (Ahoy, “The Weekender” subscription plan!) See the PDFs here and here.

--PaidConect.org: “San Francisco was a natural starting point. The Times sells more papers there than anywhere else outside the Northeast; 40,080 copies daily and 57,514 on Sundays.”

--NYT CO. NEWS RELEASE: “The Bay Area pages initially will be written and edited by New York Times journalists and contributors and will include enterprising coverage of local concerns, focusing on public affairs, culture and lifestyles in San Francisco, the Silicon Valley, the East Bay and the region. The pages will expand on the work of The Times's 10-person San Francisco news bureau and its already extensive coverage of the Bay Area. A longer-term objective of this initiative is to work with local journalists and news organizations in a collaborative way, first in the Bay Area and then in other major markets around the country. The Times is in discussions with news organizations in the Bay Area about supplying journalism for these pages. ‘At a time when so many news organizations are in a forced retreat, it's exciting to be part of a venture that has set out to build more and better news coverage,’ said Bill Keller, executive editor of The Times. ‘And as someone who grew up in the Bay Area, I'm proud that we can play a role in enriching the quality of reporting about the region.’

“ Felicity Barringer, a long-time reporter and editor for The Times, will edit the pages. Daniel Weintraub, who has covered California politics and public affairs for more than two decades, including for the past nine years as the public affairs columnist for the Sacramento Bee, will write a politics column. Scott James, a journalist and novelist who has written about Bay Area life for the past 10 years and is the founder of San Francisco's SoMa Literary Review, will write a local column. These stories and columns will also appear on NYTimes.com. Next week, The Times will introduce a blog called ‘The Bay Area,’ designed to complement the print pages by leading a conversation about the top stories of interest to people in the region. The Times also is in conversations with potential news providers in Chicago to provide the same kind of regional report, devoted to local news and written by local reporters with deep roots in the community. The added pages and online components for both editions will be supported by local advertising.”

--“Weintraub leaving Sacramento Bee,” by L.A. Observed’s Kevin Roderick: “Daniel Weintraub, the columnist for the Sacramento Bee opinion pages since 2000 and before that a reporter in the capital, is leaving the paper on Friday. He will be starting a non-profit website on California health policy and writing a weekly politics column for the New York Times' new Bay Area edition. He'll also be writing about California in other forums. Longtime LAO readers might remember Weintraub was one of the first newspaper columnists to blog regularly as the California Insider, starting during the 2003 recall campaign that invented Arnold Schwarzenegger as a Republican office-holder. In 2007 the Bee put Weintraub behind the pay wall, with the expected results. Before the Bee, Weintraub covered Sacramento for the Los Angeles Times.”

SPORTS BLINK -- WashPost A1, “Familiar Name, Brand New Game: Paul Pelosi, Husband of House Speaker, Takes His Shot at Football,” by Les Carpenter, in Las Vegas: “Through a fading desert evening late last week, the owner of the California Redwoods football team stepped into the lights of Sam Boyd Stadium for a celebratory coin toss that would be the first official act of the United Football League. He tried to blend in with the other league executives gathered around the field's center, just as he has for the past two decades, always careful never to draw too much notice. Until the stadium announcer called his name. And Paul Pelosi was anonymous no more. He has worked hard to avoid such moments, to stand in the shadows, since his more famous wife, Nancy, first went to Congress in 1987 and then rose to become the first female speaker of the House in 2007. He knew the fortune he amassed as an investor and developer in San Francisco -- estimated through her 2008 financial disclosure filings to range from $24 million to $108 million -- would be a distraction. And then with a single investment in his friend Bill Hambrecht's longtime dream of a second professional football league to challenge the NFL, the curtain had been pulled away. Although he is not a big sports fan, Pelosi paid $12 million for the franchise for the same reason he has made countless other investments over the years: He felt it could bring him a nice return.”

WILL FRED RYAN, OR JERRY FRITZ, BE THE WINNER ... when No. 6 USC plays at No. 25 Notre Dame at 3:30 p.m.?

THE SHOWS, from Mackowiak:

--NBC's "Meet the Press": White House Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), roundtable with First Lady of California Maria Shriver and President of the Center for American Progress John Podesta

** The financial costs associated with chronic diseases are high and rising. But many diseases -- including heart disease, lung diseases, and some cancers -- can be prevented. The Triple Solution for a Healthier America advocates a 3-part approach to improve health and lower costs:

****** A message from UnitedHealth Group: What does it take to create a modern, high-performing, simpler health care system? Expanding access to care through proven state-based coverage and employer-sponsored insurance. Making health care more affordable with consumer-directed care and value-based payments. Supporting and modernizing Medicare to meet the complex health challenges of America’s seniors. And reinvesting in health to support research and innovation. Learn more about these ideas at http://www.unitedhealthgroup.com ******

Authors:

About The Author

Mike Allen is the chief White House correspondent for POLITICO. He comes to us from Time magazine where he was their White House correspondent. Prior to that, Allen spent six years at The Washington Post, where he covered President Bush's first term, Capitol Hill, campaign finance, and the Bush, Gore and Bradley campaigns of 2000. Before turning to national politics, he covered schools and local governments in rural counties outside Fredericksburg, Va., for The Free Lance-Star, then wrote about Doug Wilder, Oliver North, Chuck Robb and the Bobbitts for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, where he nurtured police sources on overnight ride-alongs through housing projects. Allen also covered Mayor Giuliani, the Connecticut statehouse and the wacky rich of Greenwich for The New York Times. Before moving to The Times, he did stints in the Richmond and Alexandria bureaus of The Washington Post. Allen grew up in Orange County, Calif., and has a B.A. from Washington and Lee University, where he majored in politics and journalism.